Silent Protector
by artemis-nz
Summary: Subaru is woken by an odd sound. Subaru/Kamui.


**Please go easy on me with this one – I do fully release it is very short (and sucks) but bear with it and review to let me know where I went wrong; I was just struck with inspiration one night and wrote it pretty much straight away without thinking... so... let me know. Song is for The Calling, 'For You'.**

Subaru was woken suddenly, abruptly, because someone was crying.

_I am a vision,  
I am justice,  
Never thought that I could love...  
Living in shadows,  
Fading existence,  
It was never good enough..._

Of course, it was not so unusual for Subaru to hear this. He was a watcher, after all – he saw people all the time going about their daily lives, and they rarely saw him.

No, it was not the fact that this someone was merely crying that had woken him.

It was, more specifically, _how_ they were crying.

_Within the darkness,  
You are the light that shines the way...  
You're trapped in violence;  
I can be the man who saves the day..._

People, Subaru had found, typically cried in two ways.

First, there was the childlike way. Loudly, not caring who heard – or in fact _trying_ to be heard. Obnoxious crying.

He never did like that type of crying.

And then, ashamed crying. Ashamed to be heard, ashamed to be seen, ashamed to be caught indulging in what they deemed to be unacceptable behavior. Stifled crying.

Subaru did not particularly fancy that type of crying either.

_I'm there for you,  
No matter what...  
I'm there for you,  
Never giving up...  
I'm there for you...  
For You. _

What was different with this crying, was that it was... well, different. It was neither the cry of a child, nor the cry of someone trying to hide it.

This was a cry simply of pain.

The someone was crying in a low, almost bitter way – gut-wrenching cries which tore from the throat and were freed in the night air. It was eerie, haunting, and completely and utterly pitiable.

_Someone's changed me,  
Something's saved me,  
And this is who I am...  
Although I was blinded,  
My heart let me find out  
That truth makes a better man... _

Subaru knew the cry, because only a rare few would cry as one such as this. It was a cry of sorrow, a cry of unspeakable pain. A cry of lost innocence, and, most of all, a cry of someone who _knew_ that their childhood had ended before it could ever begin.

Subaru knew the cry, because once, long ago, he had been such a one.

But, there was one other reason Subaru had woken, and found that tears were now leaking from his own eyes at hearing this someone's cry.

He knew that cry.

"Kamui."

_I didn't notice  
That you were right in front of me...  
Our masks of silence  
We'll put away so we can see..._

Subaru could picture him now – Kamui would be wrapped tightly in on himself into a small ball – to derive some form of fragile protection against the world and it's fate. His amber eyes would be closed in pain, and the tears would be running down that pale skin like drops of pure crystal.

He wanted so much to stop that pain; to protect him from what memories plagued his mind and would not let him rest. He wanted to stop those cries, and ease the hurt that had caused them.

_I'm there for you,  
No matter what...  
I'm there for you,  
Never giving up...  
I'm there for you...  
For You._

And so Subaru did the only thing he could think of doing at hearing such pain cast into the air.

He went into the room where the boy sat hunched in a ball on the floor, and knelt in front of him, and held him close as Kamui wept out his heart for the world to hear; a keening that played at the heartstrings. He pressed Kamui to him as the boy released his every feeling, his every emotion.

_I'm there for you,  
No matter what...  
I'm there for you,  
Never giving up...  
Cause you know it's true;  
Cos you were there for me...  
And I'm there for you...  
For you... _

And then, as the bitter crying gradually turned into quiet sobbing, and as the quiet sobbing gradually turned into the odd hiccup, and as the odd hiccup gradually turned into deep and even breathing, Subaru still held him close all through the night – his shield against a harsh world that had dealt so much cruelty.

A silent protector.

_For you._


End file.
